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Earlier this week, I finished writing the first draft of Embers, the second book in The Frozen Flame series. It feels good to complete a book, and I’m quite happy with the way it came out. Of course, there’s always editing to do, and eventually, feedback from the BETA team may lead to changes, but the main writing is done, and now I can begin work on my next project.
Writing a book tends to immerse me in the characters and so between major works I use a ‘palate cleansing’ technique. This consists of writing a short story (sometimes not so short) before returning to one of my series. In this case, I’ll be playing around with a story about Cyric, who’s a secondary character in Ashes. This story will likely be short, but then again Albreda’s origin was meant to be brief, and it ended up being close to 40,000 words. After Cyric, I’ll be returning to the world of Merceria for Defender of the Crown, the follow up to Burden of the Crown. I already have a fairly detailed outline for that story, though I need to do some tweaking to make it flow better. On a side note, last week, we passed the second anniversary of the release of Servant of the Crown. I never would have thought, at the time, that two years later I’d have so many books available! Now it’s time for me to get to work on my twelfth book. Until next time, Happy reading!
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Let me start by saying that I like Minecraft, and I also played Pokemon Go when it first came out
Now, Mojang, the developers of Minecraft have combined their premiere game with Augmented Reality to create Minecraft Earth. This is a mobile game that allows you to travel around the real world and work with Minecraft inspired items. The technology that allows this is impressive, and the effect, judging from early videos, looks mind-boggling. Of course, it’s too early to say how successful this will be, but I have an idea that it might be a game-changer. In the same way that Pokemon Go pulled people from houses, I suspect that millions of people, of all ages, will find this fascinating. Apparently, your creations will only be visible to your friends, a wise move, or else your local park would soon fill up with Minecraft structures. They also have little adventures for you to participate in, as showing in this VIDEO on YouTube. It’s still early days yet, but it goes live sometime this month. I see a new mobile game in my future, how about you? Ashes has finally released, and I’m happy to see how many people like it. Starting a second series is always a gamble, as you never know if those that read your first books will enjoy a new series.
This one, in particular, is different in tone than the others I have planned, so it’s nice seeing it get off to a good start. This is particularly inspiring, as I’m currently at work on book two in the series. Don’t worry though, the next book in the Heir to the Crown series is already written, it’s just awaiting final proofreading after having gone through its BETA reader phase. Of course, I have more series planned, all of which take place within the same world. Each will stand on its own but will have links to the other series, some subtle, and some more blatant. I look forward to revealing more about these projects at they near fruition, but, for the moment at least, Athgar and Natalia, the main characters of The Frozen Flame series, are occupying my time. Until next time, Happy Reading, and thanks for the wonderful start to my new series, Ashes. This week, I noticed on Facebook that we released the cover art for Servant of the Crown two years ago. My, how time flies. It seems like just yesterday that I was fretting about the release of my first book and now, two years later, I’ve written ten books.
Perhaps the most challenging task of all was making the jump from part-time writer to full-time author. I’m not ready to retire any time soon, but we are at least we are making a living, doing something I really love. Of course it’s made even better by allowing me to work with my wife, who acts as my editor. The response over the last two years has been tremendous, and I find it encouraging to read all the positive comments on my first series. Now, of course, I’m about to embark on my next series, The Frozen Flame, which goes live shortly. Don’t worry though, I’ve still many more tales to tell in the land of Merceria. Until next time, Happy Reading! Summer seemed to go by quickly this year!
As I write this, I’m hard and work adding a myriad of details to the series outline for The Frozen Flame. There’s lots happening as our heroes, Athgar and Natalia, navigate the difficult politics of the eastern kingdoms. As with the Heir to the Crown series, there are multiple subplots, and so I’ve decided to take few days to detail these out before commencing work on Embers, the second book of the series. In this way I can weave the stories together, giving them a more epic scale. Of course I can’t really divulge what these plots are, that would spoil the fun of reading the series, but let’s just say that little clues will be revealed as the stories progress. Most of the groundwork has already been laid, and now I’m in the process of planning out when those seeds will come to life! I’m quite excited to bring this new series to life, for, unlike Heir to the Crown, there are only two main characters. Their actions will have a dramatic effect on what’s happening in the Petty Kingdoms. Until next time, Happy Reading! Well, I’m back from vacation, and I must say it’s a little tricky getting settled into my regular schedule. When I left, I was halfway through The Making of a Man. I started out by re-reading what I’d written, which helped to refresh my mind. Now, the words are starting to come back to me, but I must admit to still being partially in vacation mode. I’m sure things will settle down in a day or two.
As I write, I’m often thinking of other possible story-lines. Even on vacation, I jotted down some interesting plots. Who knows if I’ll ever get around to using them. I find things like that have a way of simmering in my mind. As time goes by, I add ideas to them and, before I know it, I have a full-fledged story. In the meantime, I’ll have to contend myself with telling Fitz’s origin story. As I do that, Carol is hard at work editing Burden of the Crown, with additional chapters hopefully going out to the BETA readers this week. What did I do on my vacation? Canoed, Kayaked, visited Algonquin park and played Minecraft on my laptop. Oh yes, I also came up with an idea for a story on Herdwin, but I don’t want to say too much about that at present as I’m still ruminating on it. Until next time, Happy Reading! We had a busy weekend as Carol and I went to Toronto to see a Michael Buble concert. It was very entertaining, and in addition to being an incredible singer, he made an excellent host, chatting with the crowd and bringing people up on stage. Monday, however, it was back to work.
I’ve been outlining some additional changes to make to Baron Fitzwilliam’s origin story, and I must say it’s looking quite promising. I had originally intending to make it a novella, but I believe it’ll actually end up being a full-blown novel. I also revisited Burden of the Crown, rewriting the ending somewhat. I felt it need some extra punch to it, but also a little humour (thank you, Jack Marlowe.) Tomorrow, I look forward to returning to The Making of a Man. I’m currently only about 6,000 words in, but I have extensive outline notes. I drew some interesting parallels to Sword of Crown. I like the idea that Beverly’s childhood was similar in some ways to her father's, and yet in other ways quite different. In any event, I think his story will quite clearly explain why Fitz is the way he is and how he became the epitome of nobility. Until next time, Happy Reading! Having complete Burden of the Crown last week, I found myself at a bit of a crossroads, with too many stories on my mind. I have thus spent the last two days working on rough outlines for not one, but two stories. The first is Embers, and forms the second story in the Frozen Flame series, the other is called The Making of a Man, the origin story for Richard Fitzwilliam, the Baron of Bodden.
Embers now consists of a chapter by chapter breakdown, but The Making of a Man had caused me some concern as I struggled to come up with the main plot. The answer came as Carol and I were walking the dogs. Now, I need only fill in the details, then write it. I’m hoping it will be similar in length to Albreda’s origin story, The Call of Magic, though it may take a few more days to structure it to my satisfaction. And what else have I been working on? Believe it or not, another series! I’ve been making some notes on Temple Knight, though it is still a very rough outline. Why am I giving myself all this work? Because one of the characters in Temple Knight plays a significant role in Embers! All of these stories have a certain amount of overlap, with secondary characters showing up in multiple series. Well, that’s all I have time for now, Until next time, Happy Reading! Today I released my new short novel, entitled Mercerian Tales: The Call of Magic, and it got me to thinking. Without giving too much away, it has some wolves in it, a topic which has always fascinated me. Please note that this does not mean I’d ever want one as a pet, they are wild animals and should remain so, in my humble opinion.
If you ever get a chance to see a documentary about wolves, I think you’d be surprised. There is a definite social order to their pack, and the leader looks after the rest. In addition, they mate for life, which is apparently a rarity among many other species. Why am I interested in all this? Writing, of course. Albreda’s origin story might be complete, but there are plenty of other stories out there. This week, I was working on Burden of the Crown, and in the middle of the night, I came up with an idea concerning wolves. Of course, I can’t tell you what it is, so I’ll just leave it as a tease, but you might see one or more of these creatures in Burden, or the next book, Defender of the Crown (or the next, or the next, etc.). I’m sure I’ll get round to including them again at some point. Of course, I won’t have them just for the sake of throwing in some creature. They have to have meaning for the bigger story that’s unfolding. By the way, if you want to see an interesting movie that features wolves, I can recommend one called Alpha. It takes place during prehistoric times and offers a story about how wolves and humans learned to work together. I found it riveting, but don’t expect much dialogue, it’s not that kind of movie. I suppose if you don’t like that, there’s always the dire wolves of Game of Thrones, but I found them woefully underutilized, impressive as they were. Until next time, Happy Reading! I sit here, the day after Canada day, with a heavy heart. I have completed my viewing of all twelve seasons of Murdoch Mysteries, one of my favourites, along with the final season of Game of Thrones. Don’t worry, though, my binge watching of these shows has not slowed my writing in the least. (Well, okay, maybe it did today, but not most days.) I shall have to come up with some more creative ways of spending my evenings now. (Hmm, I do have that book on medieval knights to finish.)
Today, the editing for The Awakening, the short story prequel for Natalia Stormwind, was completed, and it’s now off to the BETA readers to get their feedback. Up next is Into the Fire, Athgar’s prequel, another short story. We still have to do a read-through on that and a little tweaking of the story-line, then it, too, will be sent off. All in all, not a bad day. Now, if I can just get the Game of Thrones theme out of my head… Until next time, Happy Reading! |
AuthorPaul Bennett is a self-published author of Epic Fantasy books. Archives
September 2020
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